Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Phaedrus II: The Last Judgement of Thamus

Phaedrus II: The Last Judgement of Thamus

by Azly Rahman

__________________________________________

Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.

-- Denis Diderot, French Enlightenment thinker

There
was non among the myriads of men that existed who would pity or assist
me; and should I feel kindness towards my enemies? No: from that moment I
declared everlasting war against the species, and, more than all,
against him who had formed me and sent me forth to this insupportable
misery.

-- 'Frankenstein' by Mary Shelley-Wollstonecraft

Sometime ago, after reading Plato's narration
of a conversation between King Thamus and the inventor Theuth
concerning the impact of new technologies on society, after reading
media guru Neil Postman's work Technopoly, and after deep
reflection on the idea of the Luddites (a movement that "raged against
the machine" during the Industrial Revolution), I penned verses which I
find suitable to honour Malaysian bloggers in their onward march towards
creating a spectre that will haunt the state-owned print media.

Here it goes:

P H A E D R U S II
The Last Judgement of Thamus
Circa A.D. 2020
Lines composed near the banks of Hudson River, New York city
by Azly Rahman

Background notes: They
say that there dwelt at Naucratis in Egypt one of the old gods of that
country, to whom the bird they call Ibis was sacred, and the name of the
god himself was Theuth. Among his inventions were number and
calculation . . . and, above all, writing. . . . To [the king, Thamus]
came Theuth and exhibited his inventions . . . when it came to writing,
Theuth declared: "There is an accomplishment, my lord the kind, which
will improve both the wisdom and the mentory of the Egyptians. I have
discovered a sure receipt for memory and wisdom." "Theuth, my paragon of
inventors," replied the king, "the discoverer of an art is not the best
judge of the good or harm which will accrue to those who practise it. .
. . Those who acquire [writing] will cease to exercise their memory and
become forgetful. . . . What you have discovered is a receipt for
recollection, not for memory . . . ( Phaedrus, 95-96)

And it was in the year 2020
In a not-too-distant cybercity
As Socrates' narratives on cybertechnology
Laments King Thamus's concern for the fate of academies

And Theuth my inventor par excellence
What say you concerning educational excellence?
Of the methods and principles of teaching
Brought about by new technologies of communicating?

O' Thamus, Wise King of Cyberjaya
Indeed our children will undergo Karma
Of one imbued with Dharma
Which will bring us all to Moksha
Karma is Rebirth
Dharma is Devotion and Duty
And Moksha is art of being one with Creation
Of which educational practice will assume a new reality

This invention called blogging
Of which for many ages we have waited so patiently
Will transform the meaning of Reality
and Democracy
as it marries Virtuality
More than what print media has guaranteed

O' wise King Thamus
We are witnessing the death of Papyrus
the demise of Gutenberg legacy
As we witness the birth of PERSONACRACY
deeply personalized form of postmodern democracy
In the brilliance of anarchy
To be cultivated with the media of blogging
By way of this ideology called PERSONACRACY,

O' King
Our children, the true song of democracy they will sing
Of which the teacher will die a slow death
Like the first teacher Socrates
whose fate was a choice he once had
Our children will be Brahma, Shiva, and Vishnu
The Creator, Destroyer, and the One who Renews
Our children will make history and create Knowledge
Destroy paradigms
and like Vishnu, preserve what is old and what is new

They will be Renaissance men and women
In their mind neural connections will be made,
synapses will be woven
And the boundaries of the Real and the Imagined we can no longer ascertain
In this onward march towards Virtuality
Classrooms will cease to exist nor too the concept of teaching
The sage of Russia Illich
will be singing
In honor of this day when education means deschooling

O' Thamus wise ruler of Cyberjaya
The days wherein authorities rule capital cities
Will be gone with the advent of my invention called blogging
Pedagogy will be replaced with METAPHYSICAL TRANSITION THEORIES

And Plato's academy will be history
Buried underneath the magnificence of blogging
Gone will be the idea of faculties
In their place will emerge knowledge patterned like fractal geometries
And Chaos will be the order of the day
And Complexity will be king of pedagogies

For the sage Mandelbrott did once spoke
Of the patterns inherent in knowledge and wisdom
O' Theuth my kingdom's most honored inventor,
What say you of the blogger's impact on the teacher?
One who holds the key to any civilization's treasure
And who guards the principles of a moral character?

Wise King Thamus,
this is my conjecture:
My invention is Frankensteinish in nature
Aren't we already at the end of history?
Wherein the Knower and the Known has no longer a boundary?
This technology will destroy authorities
Including values we guard with jealousy
Slain like the dragon in Beowulf's story
Buried with Socrates and Dante Alighieri

A further elaboration concerning the death of authority:
O' King, I call this an Age of Subalternity
In which we will witness the dawn of PERSONACRACY
Of which with the help of blogging,
the child constructs his customized version of democracy

O' Theuth Master Inventor
Yours is a song of conjectures
For, can you as a creator
Be the judge of what good and bad
blogging will bring into our future?

My greatest apologies
Wisest of all Kings
Do you not remember that we are in the year 2020?
In which kingdoms have been crushed
under the weight of technologies of virtual realities?

TRIBUTE TO TEACHERS

About Azly Rahman

DR AZLY RAHMAN, born in Singapore and grew up in Johor Baru, holds a Columbia University (New York City) doctorate in International Education Development and Masters degrees in four areas: Education, International Affairs, Peace Studies and Communication. He has taught more than 40 courses in six different departments and has written more than 350 analyses on Malaysia. His teaching experience in Malaysia and the United States spans over a wide range of subjects, from elementary to graduate education. He has edited and authored six books; Multiethnic Malaysia: Past, Present, Future (2009), Thesis on Cyberjaya: Hegemony and Utopianism in a Southeast Asian State (2012), The Allah Controversy and Other Essays on Malaysian Hypermodernity (2013), Dark Spring: Ideological Roots of Malaysia's GE-13 (2013), a first Malay publication Kalimah Allah Milik Siapa?: Renungan dan Nukilan Tentang Malaysia di Era Pancaroba (2014), and Controlled Chaos: Essays on Mahathirism, Multimedia Super Corridor and Malaysia's 'New Politics' (forthcoming 2014). He currently resides in the United States where he teaches course in Philosophy, Cultural Studies, Political Science, and American Studies.